Snippet #2151216

“I’m sorry,”

The man's warm hand rested on her shoulder and like a plant desperate for light, her black birds fluttered upwards under her skin to touch his. She shivered, keeping herself still so not a millimetre of his skin left hers. It wasn't unusual for her to be intimate towards someone she barely knew - her one night stands were uncountable - but he was different somehow. What she felt was not lust but a burning need to be tucked under his wing. She, herself, was not even aware of this. The agony of restraining her powers eased with the blonde man's hand on her bare skin and her body so close to his.

“I would take this as my cue to leave but I have something important I’d like to discuss with you. It might help you better understand why you can do what others can’t,” he said in his smooth voice. Aurora stared at him, a look of puzzlement in her features. Do what others can't? Then, her eyes widened in shock, but it quickly melted into a raised eyebrow and a smirk when he said, “Is there anywhere we can go that’s more…private?”

"Most certainly," she replied. Surely, the man did not mean her unusual talent with the Elements. Aurora was over thinking things, of course. All it was was paranoia. Brushing her worried thoughts aside, she considered bringing the man to the Den. It was a terrible, ugly dollhouse filled with abandoned toys but a small nudge in her chest told her he had seen a lot worse. She then decided she would take him there as a test. For reasons unknown to her, she wanted to keep this man and the Den and it's Leftovers were a part of who she was. A part of her he needed to accept.

“You have to trust me.”

Yeah, right. Like hell I will.

THE DEN

The walk to the Den was ordinary; except for Aurora using Air to give herself an extra lift in order to keep up with the tall man's long strides. Then again, using her powers for menial tasks was not a rare or unusual occurrence. The rundown but large mansion was snuggled amongst a madness of floral overgrowth in a part of town rarely anyone ventured to. Aurora had attempted to use her powers of Earth to 'clean up' the building; to fix broken parts of the mansion and get rid of the weeds.

She'd failed miserably.

A significant chunk of the mansion was crumbled beyond repair, allowing one to see everything inside. Barbed wires had been hastily pinned up over the blank space to prevent intruders and animals from wandering in. The section was the very same part of the home Aurora had tried to 'fix' but had instead destroyed. Not that it made much of a difference to the overall ruined appearance of the Den.

Pulling a bobby pin from her hair, Aurora wiggled it in the lock to open the large double doors that were once grand. Aurora hadn't said anything to the man during their entire walk here and she wasn't quite sure what she was doing taking him here. She chuckled to herself as she imagined lovely parents on the other side, readying to greet the first boy she brought home.

The door clicked open, an eerie creek breaking the silence of the world around them. "Careful with the debris," she said before nudging the door wide open.

Inside, a large, traditionally painted family portrait hung from its hinges, threatening to crash into the long abandoned fireplace beneath. The ceilings were as high as a grand cathedral's, spiralling wood work morphing itself into the peeled paint. The ground was in absolute chaos - littered with cigarette buds, blood, grease, needles, drugs and various unknown substances. Aurora always avoided looking at the floor too long, for the last time she did, she found a chunk of rotting human flesh.

"What's your name?" she asked, listening for the breath of one of the Leftovers, finding the mansion empty. Raising her deep blue eyes up to meet the platinum blonde man's of muted green, she said in her ever-breathless voice, "I'm Aurora."

Nudging an empty packet of what looked to be Cocaine, Aurora shut the large door firmly behind her as she unbuttoned her translucent white shirt. She wasn't sure what the man wanted but she assumed it was her body; though he had a strange way of asking for it. Things she could do but others could not? Well, she could think of a good number of things she could do in bed - and elsewhere - that others could not.

Aurora couldn't deny that she'd sold her body before. It had been her primary job before she was spotted by a modelling agency. Before she cleaned up her act and gave up spending her days wasted and nights under a drunk stranger who had money to spare. She wasn't proud of it but she wasn't exactly ashamed, either. Her body was merely that - a shell in which she kept herself. Based on the things she did to herself, she clearly did not care what happened to her 'shell.'

Pressing herself up against the stranger, she pulled him by his shirt towards the battered couch, flipping him around so he fell on his back. Aurora leaned over him, holding her body up by the elbows she'd rested above his head. Her waist-length hair cascaded downwards to touch his skin.

What am I doing?

She had a strange, beautiful man under her in a disgusting, terrible place he most likely didn't want to be in. Aurora pushed herself back and stood next to the couch. Running her fingers through her straight hair, she walked briskly towards the mahogany doors, resting a hand on the handle. "I'm sorry for bringing you here," she said softly, staring at the brown wood. Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. What had she been thinking, bringing a well-dressed, perfect man like himself to a irreparable place like this? Did she expect him to welcome all these shattered pieces of people with open arms? Did she think he was something special? That's right, she hadn't been thinking at all.

"You can go."